Europe, Ukraine Play Game of Chicken Over Future Ties

Two weeks before a summit that European leaders hope will bolster trade and political ties with their eastern neighbors, the crown jewel of the initiative—an agreement that would lock Ukraine into a European path—is still up in the air.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych's failure to release a political rival, former prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko, from prison for medical care, coupled with Russia's intensifying economic pressure...